


In the end

by ShaneShenanigans



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Drabble, Hand Job, M/M, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 22:40:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17413883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaneShenanigans/pseuds/ShaneShenanigans
Summary: Oswald Cobblepot isn’t the first man he would have chosen to watch the world turn to ashes with. It’s undoubtedly certain that he wouldn’t have been Oswald’s first choice either.





	1. In the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a quick, unplanned thing that I just kind of scribbled out tonight. It's not really edited, but it was as complete as it was going to get and it's just a weird drabble to kill some urges I had. Kind of weird all together, especially because I rarely write in present tense, so that was particularly odd for me. Hope y'all can get something out of it!

Oswald Cobblepot isn’t the first man he would have chosen to watch the world turn to ashes with. It’s undoubtably certain that he wouldn’t have been Oswald’s first choice either.

But here they are, held up alone. Jim watches the explosions from the window as the flames roll in. Behind him, Oswald is on a dirty mattress, curled up into a ball, facing away and covering his head as if pretending to be somewhere else.

Jim looks back at him. He doesn’t have anything to say.

He looks back at the window. They have only minutes, and one-another. Oswald has chosen to look away. If it weren’t for the brick and glass dividing him from the chaos, Jim would be walking toward it. But it was only a matter of time. They had these last few minutes, but in his mind he was already gone.

He turns away from the window, walks toward the small bed. Oswald is shaking. He’s not a coward, and Jim can’t understand why. He can’t understand why he can’t understand. Doesn't it make sense that everyone's afraid to die?

He crawls onto the bed, quickly, because of course there’s a hurry. He doesn’t hesitate, his vision blurring as he wraps Oswald’s body tight in his arms from behind.

Oswald tenses at the contact, not unlike a snake in the grass as you reach out to touch its tail. He doesn’t strike, though, doesn’t move at all. Instead he waits, and despite all the time they don’t have, Jim waits too.

Jim exhales, maybe not on purpose, but his head dips and his lips just barely touch the back of Oswald’s neck. A shudder, his body tightening further, coiling up, Jim almost releases him.

It was sudden, like a snake bite. Oswald flipped onto his back, turned his head and pressed his lips tight against Jim’s. Jim doesn’t respond with his mouth, just his hands, squeezing the fabric of his wrinkled and soiled suit in one and reaching out a few fingers to hold on with the other.

Oswald’s breath shakes against his lips, still so close, almost touching, too close to see him clearly. Maybe that’s the way he wants it, maybe he doesn’t want to be seen. It’s too vulnerable, too unsafe. Jim wonders how long it’s been since there was anything left in the world that could make him feel safe.

He knows he can’t. Could have. Never would have.

Jim kisses him with some form of desperation, some need to give him something fueled by the inevitability that he’d be taking something as well. He can’t fathom what Oswald wants from him, but he knows that in this pit of desperation, he wants to give it to him.

Perhaps that’s all he has left, perhaps that’s the only sort of man he’s ever been.

Oswald’s fingers curl painfully into his arms, like he’s holding onto the last thing left, and Jim wants to groan at how his nails dig in and nearly break his skin but instead he pushes his tongue past Oswald’s lips, deeper until it drowns in him in a brand new taste. A moan, but he’s not sure who it belongs to. Oswald feels like a part of him, and despite it being brought on by extraordinary circumstance, it doesn’t feel new. It feels incredibly familiar, and the hands that start pulling at and pushing up Oswald’s clothes are proof that he can’t get enough.

Oswald lets him, he helps, he claws frantically at Jim’s shirt until it’s gone. Oswald’s torn suit jacket is is open, his shirt pushed up in a bunch at his neck. Their pants have only gotten as far as their knees but it’s enough, and Jim leans down to bury his face in Oswald’s blushing neck. Feeling his chest press up as he inhales, pressing down for more contact as he exhales, hand wrapping around Oswald’s cock, gasping lips smothering his ear as his hips arch into the touch.

“Jim!” He speaks, and it breaks something. A silent pact to ignore the familiarity between them, to feel rather than communicate. To simply be two men, perhaps strangers, rather than who they are. He doesn’t want to be who he is, but Oswald has never shied away from being exactly that. Jim pauses, and tries not to smile against his neck as tears prick at the corners of his eyes. It's sad that Oswald seems to break everything he touches. Jim knows better than most. 

His hand moves slow against his will. He wants hard, fast, he wants the best and worst of it and he wants the part that takes away his ability to think. But Oswald is moaning, Oswald is writhing beneath him, hips bucking and rotating and shamelessly begging for more. He’s gone, just a mess of a man beneath Jim’s hands and when he pushes himself up and looks it's the greatest thing Jim has ever seen.

A feeling surges through him as he feels something else surge through Oswald in his hand. He doesn’t want it to be over, doesn’t want this to be the end. Oswald’s eyes are shut tight, his mouth is open and panting sideways against the pillow and it doesn’t look anything like despair. 

Oswald comes, and his lower body elevates off the mattress, shooting from the head in Jim’s fist and onto his stomach, his chest, his already ruined suit. For a moment, Jim sees himself ruining a few more of those suits in a similar way, and before the smile makes its way across his lips, he snaps back to reality.

This is the end.


	2. In the beginning

Morning. A grey sky through a collapsed corner of the ceiling and a thin layer of dust. He’s alive.

His eyes widen, his head turns so fast it strains his neck but he finds what he’s looking for. A body just beside him, breathing gently, still asleep, still immune to the disaster surrounding them.

They’re alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you didn't think i was emotionally capable of just letting them die, did you???


End file.
